Track: Take Me To The Place | Artist: Bekah | Album: Take Me To The Place (digital single)

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When Bekah, one of the original members of After School, became the latest victim of the group’s “graduation” concept, she released a surprise digital single that left her fans with not a dry eye in sight.

I’ve railed long and hard against Pledis Entertainment’s treatment of their original girl group, After School, in severallong-winded tirades. This isn’t another one of those; it’s just an appreciation of Bekah’s singing voice in Take Me To The Place, which fans never really got to hear during the group’s normal promotion cycle— as After School mainly featured her as a rapper, giving her the requisite eight bars per title track and little else.

At least Bekah got a proper send-off. Other After School members, graduating post-hiatus, would not be so lucky, barely receiving lip service via a short press release—like Pledis did with Jungah and Lizzy—and retiring from K-Pop altogether (in Raina’s case, jumping ship to YouTube and trying to build a fanbase as an influencer).

This is Goodbye Songs Week, where we go through some of the most heart-rending and saddening goodbye songs from K-Pop groups whose numbers came up before their time.